


A Nightmare from Hyburn

by Lyetta



Category: A Court of Thorns and Roses Series - Sarah J. Maas
Genre: Angst, Complete, F/M, Nightmares
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-09-07
Updated: 2019-09-07
Packaged: 2020-10-11 18:54:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,680
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20551043
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lyetta/pseuds/Lyetta
Summary: Rhys has grown used to helping Feyre through her nightmares, but what happens when one night she will not wake? Set post ACOWAR





	A Nightmare from Hyburn

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first story on AO3, I hope you enjoy it.

Had I not already been awake, my mate's increasing agitation would have woken me by now.

Every night I walk the tightrope between waking her too soon and not soon enough. On one side, I must consider the obvious risk to her health and mental wellbeing from being held in her nightmares too long. Some are horrors of her own imagining and others are worse still: vivid memories of the horrors we have already faced.

But waking her too soon, before I am certain that the nightmares have her ensnared, leaves her sleep deprived - an added burden that hinders her by day and makes her more vulnerable to nightmares, both ultimately slowing her recovery.

I'm ashamed to think of my other reason for not to waking her, I am careful to keep it hidden even when I open my mind to her during the day. I am afraid of my own fears, my own nightmares. Afraid that waking her would reveal that most nights I stay awake, alert, my attention focused on her.

I am afraid Feyre would feel smothered by my concern and draw parallels that I have fought hard to avoid.

So I let her sleep. Let her fight her own battles, though it hurts me to do so; while I myself resist sleep, protecting her from my nightmares.

Tonight is not uncommon.

Tossing and turning, muscles spasming in her arms and legs. Her hands have formed fists that I surround with my own hands. As I try to sooth and relax those fingers, I feel the familiar tug at my heart – those hands were my first glimpse of my mate all that time ago, now held in mine, forever.

Her breathing is now coming in shallow gasps and short exhales. A film of sweat covers her forehead and neck.

"Feyre," I whisper, because sometimes my voice is enough to calm her while she sleeps. Not tonight.

I hate that the recent events with Hyburn have pushed her back into this state. More, I hate that I can't pull her back up as I did before. When I had help make her strong, trained her to take the essence of seven High Lords and together make them into something all of her own.

The colour drains from her face and a noise like a whimper, like a wounded animal, leaves her. I feel her darkness surround us before I see it and I know this darkness - it is the darkness of loss, of grief. 

It's time.

I take her shoulders and shake her, gently at first, calling her name. But when the temperature in the room drops to near freezing I increase my efforts, becoming louder and firmer.

Still, she does not wake. 

A tremor takes hold her of, seeming to start from deep in her chest. But it is not the temperature that causes it. I have come to know this symptom of her nightmares as well as the sickness that follows. And she is not the only one who is afraid.

_I cannot wake her. _

Panic sets in as I pull her up against my chest until she is lying between my legs with my arms around her and her clammy forehead resting against my neck. 

I do not believe that she could be so deeply asleep not to wake from all I have said and done. This is no ordinary nightmare. And it stinks of Hyburn. 

Not the King, of course, he is dead - good riddance. But I know a few of his closest followers escaped Amren's purge. I have been hunting them down, one by one. 

My mind flies through all the ways a slow acting poison could have been given, wondering if I were the intended target, wondering if I _am_ the target and watching my mate is the punishment chosen. 

Even with the chill of her darkness to cool her, Feyre's skin remains burning hot. I brush the hair, now damp with sweat, away from her face, peeling loose strands away from hot skin. I press a brief kiss to the corner of her mouth in apology for what I must do. 

It feels like a violation, to enter my mate's mind without her consent, even though I know, in these circumstances, she would offer that consent to me willingly. Her dreams and nightmares should be her own, to share if and when she wants to. 

But I need to reach her. 

I press another kiss to the top of her head, inhaling her scent and pushing easily through her weakened mental shield.

I am shocked by what I see but not surprised. 

In her mind she is also shaking, yet here she is still standing and dressed in clothes that are almost familiar. They are a blend of what she had been wearing on that last day Under the Mountain and her Illyrian fighting leathers. 

Feyre is looking down on me - on her memory of me. It's an image that I know haunts her, which she has shared with me via the mating bond. I am lying on the ground, unmoving, with my wings pinned beneath me. Dead. 

But the dream has warped the image because there is a fresh wound in my chest, just off centre. Above my heart. 

And in her hand is an ash dagger still wet with blood rolling down the blade, collecting briefly at the tip before dripping to the ground. 

"Feyre," I say, keeping my voice calm and free of my own anxiety. 

My mate hears my voice and stumbles a step towards the body in front of her, believing the sound to have come from there. 

"This is a dream Feyre, that's not me. But I am with you, I'm here, behind you. I'm holding you while you sleep but it's time to wake up now." 

Her shaking doesn't increase but neither does it cease. What I can see of her face is pale and drawn. Her anguish is real even if the image she sees is not. I can understand that. 

"You didn't stab me. This isn't real." They are the wrong words and I regret them even before she has had time to process what I've said. 

Three new figures appear, two High Fae and Tamlin. Also stabbed. Also dead. And Feyre whispers, "I did stab them. That was real." 

I can only watch as she falls to her knees, gazing at all four bodies but returning most often to the wide eyes of the first High Fae male from Amarantha's final task. 

And then I swear my heart stops because in her dream Feyre drags her eyes away from them to stare at the dagger in her hand. And I remember her words to the Carver on our first visit, how she had planned to end her own life. 

And my panic at this persistent nightmare increases tenfold because now I am wondering if she would ever be able to wake if for some reason she died within the dream. If she gave in to the dagger in her hand. 

"I love you." They are the first words to form from the tangle of words and emotions at war in my mind. "I need you." 

Feyre's shoulders relax a fraction. 

"I've needed you since those first dreams, glimpses of a life so far from my own. I needed that reminder to stay alive, keep my true self alive and not become what everyone else saw: her whore. 

"And when I finally met you, you reminded me what bravery looked like. I remembered how to fight for more than the right to simply exist. 

"When you came to live with me, you reminded me how to look to the future, how to dream of a life worth living." 

I see how Feyre turns, so slowly, towards the sound of my voice. Turns away from the bodies. I keep talking, "When you accepted me as your mate I knew I needed you for every strand of my life to make sense. I knew that every beat of my heart was simply the echo of the beating of yours." 

Her profile showed the conflict of grief and love, but love was winning. "I need you to wake up, Feyre." 

"How?" 

My relief is a waterfall cascading down my body. 

"Turn towards my voice," she does and behind her the bodies vanish. "Now let the dagger go."

Her mouth twisted, "I can't." Looking down at her hand, she continues, "I can't, it won't let me." Whether the ‘it’ was this dream or the knife itself, I'm not sure.

"OK, OK," I say, thinking quickly. "Forget the dagger. What do you see?" 

She looked up but there was no recognition, I knew she could not see me. 

"The night sky. Just like the sky I painted on my draw at home." 

Just like the first image I ever sent down the bond to her. 

There were no words, for a moment I feel overwhelmed with love. And some of that surge in emotion must have reached through into her dream because her expression softens into a look of wonder. 

"You can wait this out Feyre, it can't last much longer."

"I want to be with you." She whispers, and I knew from her tone that she had realised that the night sky was me. "Maybe... maybe I need to use the dagger to wake up-" 

"No!” Too loud. Feyre jumps at the sound of my voice in her head. I try to stay calm, “This is no ordinary dream, do nothing that puts you at risk. Please Feyre, do nothing." 

"OK. I'll wait.” A small smile. “If I had to wait 500 years for you, I'd wait." My words, given back to me. 

I pull back, leaving her with my mental presence while shifting my attention to her sleeping form. Colour is returning to her face and as I watch the tension, not just there but also in her shoulders and hands, melts away.

“Wake up Feyre,” I whisper, and this time my voice is enough.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading :)
> 
> I'm working on a longer story, a modern AU for ACOTAR, so I should start uploading that soon.


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